Dalil Boubakeur, head of the Paris mosque and of the ineffective joke known as the French Council of the Muslim Faith, has called on French authorities to use respectful words of peace so as not to rile up hair trigger sensibilities among French suburban youth. Mr. Boubakeur needs to be reminded that when Interior Minister Sarkozy called suburban youth riffraff and thugs, it was following the murder of a 10 year old child. Punks who kick a father to death in front of his family are scum. Rioters who douse handicapped people with gasoline before setting them alight are animals. And now that I think of it, Mr. Boubakeur can go straight to Hell.

Childrens' photos remain stuck to the walls at a nursery school in Acheres, west of Paris, Saturday, Nov. 5, 2005, after rioters burned it to the ground during a wave of mass disorder that is sweeping through the country. Marauding youths torched 750 cars, stoned paramedics and burned a nursery school in a ninth night of violence that spread from Paris suburbs to towns around France. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon)

The night is young but -- Don't give us none of your aggravation, We had it with your discipline, Saturday night's alright for fighting, Get a little action in -- Get about as oiled as a diesel train, Gonna set this dance alight, `cause Saturday night's the night I like, Saturday night's alright alright alright.

Two schools burned down in Grigny along with a paper recycling plant. 23 cars burned in Essone. A school and 35 vehicles burned in Vigneux (before 10PM local time). In Seine Saint Denis "many" cars have been torched and a gymnasium in Noisy le Grand is on fire. In Seine et Marne an 18 wheeler was torched just in front of the technical high school -- fireman arriving at the scene were pelted with rocks.

Fire bombs are being used in Avignon, Saint-Dizier, Soissons, Nantes, Montauban, and in Loir-et-Cher.

Numerous attacks are reported in Northern France : Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing, and Mons-en-Baroeuil. Firemen report an 18 wheeler on fire in Lille and a bus burning in Auby.

Marseille has reported 3 burning cars (before 9PM local time). Cannes and Nice also report torched vehicles. Firemen have been attacked in Nice.

PARIS (AP) - For the tenth consecutive night, vandalism and urban violence were reported by the police in Ile-de-France and outside Paris on Saturday evening.

The most serious incidents reported were in Essonne, where police already documented 23 cars destroyed by fire before 21h00. In the commune of Grigny, two schools were burnt. Five classerooms of the "Sleeping Beauty" nursery school were destroyed and two in "the Triolet school". A significant fire also devastated a paper recycling plant.

Another school was effected in Vigneux, and police report that 35 vehicles set on fire throughout the department not long before 22h.As a Seine-Saint-Denis, the police report many burnt vehicles. A significant fire was also announced in a gymnasium of Noisy-the-Large.In Seine-et-Marne, weight-heavy was on fire opposite the professional college of Savigny-the-Temple, where the firemen were taken for targets by stone launchers.In the quartier des Musiciens in Mureaux (Yvelines) approximately 50km in the west of Paris, a car was set ablaze requiring the intervention of firemen.In the quartier de la République in Paris, three cars were damaged by a Molotov cocktail near the police station.In other parts of the country, incidents multiplied in cities that were relatively calm until now. Mainly cars set alight using Molotov cocktails by gangs of young people, as in Avignon (Vaucluse), Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne), Soissons (Aisne), Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), Montauban (the Tarn-and-Garonne) or in Loir-et-Cher.Vandalism were more common in the north, said one of the same sources. In addition to car fires in Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Mons-in-Baroeuil, fire officials reported a tractor-trailer set on fire in Lille and a bus burned in Auby.In the south, in Marseilles (Bouches-du-Rhone) police reported three fires of cars by 21h00. In Alpes-Maritimes, several vehicles were also set on fire in the cities of Cannes and in Nice, where firemen pelted with rocks while trying to extinguish the blaze.In Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) a half-dozen cars had already been set alight not long before 21h00.

Two great writers who are on the same wavelength. Mark Steyn comments on the Eurabian Civil War, as does Maurice G. Dantec who places the riots in the context of a prologue to a French Civil War (video link: Canadian TV; excellent interview with footage of the riots which has never been shown on French TV. Merci à Avary.).

writes Telis Demos in Slate, proving that our detractors' claims that clueless Americans are gleefully overreacting to the events in France are false.

In addition to nine straight days of riots and protests in the city's poorest immigrant suburbs, new violence has erupted in three towns far from Paris. The WP blandly describes the current situation. While President Jacques Chirac has yet to deliver a major address, Muslim community leaders have started meeting to figure out how to curb the violence. Some suburbs are planning anti-riot protests for the weekend. The NYT's more incisive story looks at possible explanations, highlighted by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's anti-crime measures.

For more insight, don't miss Craig S. Smith's graphic piece in the NYT about a new wave of workers from central and southern Africa determinedly heading to Europe (via Spain, which has liberal immigration controls) as AIDS and other diseases devastate their home countries.

At the State Department in Washington, spokesman Sean McCormack … said the riots were a French internal issue. "Certainly, as anybody would, we mourn the loss of life in these kinds of situations. But, again, these are issues for the French people and the French government to address."

Peugeot and Renault (along with 178 other French companies) are caught with regards to the bribes they were paying to Saddam's regime. Keep in mind that supporting Iraq, in the face of American pressure, was supposed to pacify the festering shitpots that are the French suburbs. By the way Chiraq, how's that working for you?

Renault VI, Peugeot, and nearly 180 other companies incorporated in France were revealed by the Volcker commission, knowingly or not, to have poured tens of million dollars below-of table to Saddam Hussein in violation of the international embargo on Iraq before the 2003 war. According to documents' obtained by the investigators, within the framework of the "Oil for food" program, Renault VI (truckmaker Renault industrial vehicles, now a subsidiary of Volvo Group) paid more than 6,5 million dollars in bribes. Peugeot is suspected of having illegally poured nearly 7 million dollars. The relief program had been set up in 1996, to attenuate the [effects of the UN] sanctions. It made it possible for Iraq to sell crude oil such that the profits, controlled by the UN, were used to buy basic goods. Very quickly, Saddam Hussein made it into a tool to skirt the embargo. From 1999, the illegally operation imposed on its suppliers a supposed tax to pay the transit of the goods through the gulf port of Oum Qasr. In 2000 10 % "tax of after-sales service"was added, often paid in cash to accounts in Jordan or Lebanon.

Many French companies paid up. According to Volcker commission documents Renault VI obtained 39 contracts with a value of more than 167 million dollars. They related to the sale of industrial vehicles, cooled trucks, trucks of firemen, tankers, refuse collecting vehicles, spare parts of tractors... More half of these contracts of nearly 78 million dollars would have been the subject of illicit payments totalling approximately 7 million dollars. Renault would have also paid "interior carriage taxes” of an unspecified amount. The investigators say they found precise evidence, some of which is financial data from Iraqi ministries.

AMBULANCES AND MINIBUS

Peugeot on the whole obtained 14 contracts, of an approximate value of 169 million for ambulances, cars, minibuses, and spare parts. According to the report four of these contracts, in an amount of more than 77 million dollars, is the subject of 7 million dollars of bribes. In this specific case, the amounts of the bribes "were estimated" by the investigators starting from general information conforming with the "uniform policy of the Iraqi government, which was to claim bribes at certain times" .During the nineteen months of investigation, the investigators had access to many sources of UN, commercial, banking, and government records. (Paul Volcker accepted the co-operation of French authorities). According to them, these sources are often suspect. The commission admits in its’ October 27 report that nothing proves that the companies approved the illicit payments or were informed of it. "Most companies freely accepted the Iraqi requests. Others made payments with third parties or intermediaries, while not documenting the probable recipients."All the companies blamed were contacted by the commission and were invited to defend themselves. The majority chose not to respond. According to the report many others companies which provided things like irrigation equipment paid nearly 3 million dollars in bribes, Franco Pétrochimique, which sold parts for the oil industry paid more than one million dollars. Air Liquide Engineering paid 34 272 dollars. Pierre Fabre health, paid 15 895 dollars, Saint-Gobain de Jonquères paid 151 184 dollars, and Sides paid 497 193 dollars.Other companies named are listed having admitted that payments were made but felt that they were legitimate. It is the case of Urgo laboratories in amounted to 238 643 dollars of sales on bandages. Gerflor Taraflex which paid 12 930 dollars under the table or Francexpa, which sold baby formula paid 9 109 dollars said investigators, but were not put to fault or required that their defense remain confidential. These are only a few example of the 180 French companies that illegally enriched Saddam Hussein.

Just to make things perfectly clear: Just as Hurricane Katrina could never happen in France, neither could anything like the 1992 riots in Los Angeles. The New York Sun (merci à Tonton Hervé):

Back in the 1990s, the French sneered at America for the Los Angeles riots. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported in 1992: "the consensus of French pundits is that something on the scale of the Los Angeles riots could not happen here, mainly because France is a more humane, less racist place with a much stronger commitment to social welfare programs." President Mitterrand, the Washington Post reported in 1992, blamed the riots on the "conservative society" that Presidents Reagan and Bush had created and said France is different because it "is the country where the level of social protection is the highest in the world."

… immigration into a country with a dirigiste economy is a recipe for trouble, which is why supporters of immigration into France have long warned of the need for liberalization.

"Violence will benefit no-one. The Republican State will not accept violence ", reaffirmed Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday, after a crisis meeting in Matignon on the suburban riots. 897 vehicles were set ablaze on Friday night, and 253 people were arrested.The message remains the same one after a ninth night of violence: " Violence will benefit no-one. The Republican State will not accept violence", Nicolas Sarkozy declared Saturday at the Matignon municipal building. "People must understand that setting fire to a vehicle is an injustice to the property owner, and that punishment will be severe. The government is unanimous standing firm ", the Minister of Interior Department said following a ministerial meeting in Matignon on the crisis in the suburbs, chaired by the Prime Minister.

"The ministers are working together closely’ [ED: the title implies that they are in agreement]

de Villepin had convened a half-day meeting of eight ministers on Saturday "to evaluate the changing circumstances in the urban area of sinificance". Taking part in this meeting in addition to Nicolas Sarkozy, were Jean-Louis Borloo (employment), Gilles de Robien (education), Pascal Clément (justice), Azouz Begag (equal opportunity), Jean-François Copé (budget, spokesman of the government), Catherine Vautrin (social cohesion) and Thierry Breton (finances).

"the whole of the government is mobilized, declared the latter at the close of the meeting (...) the ministers work hand in hand today" (...) the priority is clearly the return to the normality in France,and that there are no areas of lawlessness ".

Matignon indicated that before this meeting, de Villepin had conferred privately with Sarkozy. The evening before, the head of government had also met with about fifteen young people from sensitive districts.

The police force reported 897 vehicles were set ablaze and arrested 253 troublemakers overnight Friday throughout France the ninth consecutive night of violence in the sensitive area.

"Each word [ED: aired in public] has importance"

After the ministerial meeting, the Prime Minister met for a half hour with the vice-chancellor of the mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur. Upon leaving Matignon, he declared that "in such difficult circumstances, each word of each statement matters" and that he was waiting to hear "statements of peace" from the government. "I wait on all the authorities, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Prime Minister and other eminent personages of this country that they call for calm", insisted the vice-chancellor, also president of the French Council of the Moslem worship (CFCM).

Included after the article is this N.B.:

Dear readers, since the beginning of violence in the suburbs, a great number of you are commenting to our news site. We thank you. But taking into account the number of reactions we have recieved, it has became impossible to publish them and maintain our objectivity, dedication, and responsiveness. We are therefore temporarily suspending the publication of comments on this subject. We thank you for your understanding and your cooperation.

The night was rife with activity by those charming French kids. 754 vehicles burned, and 203 arrests. The violence continues to spread beyond the capital : One fourth of the vehicles were burned outisde of the Paris area in other regions of the country.

The accent by rioters is on pack-like behavior and avoiding direct confrontation with the herd (the riot police).

A pre-school was burned down in Achères as was a junior high school in Torcy. A fire truck was destroyed in Meaux. In Champigny a bus was torched after the occupants were forced to flee. A fire bomb was thrown at a police station in Saint-Denis, and in Suresnes an underground parking lot had 36 cars completely burned out. In Clamart, a ten year old was caught with a fire bomb (sounds like something that happened in Iraq) and in Boulogne police arrested a rioter who has torched 15 vehicles. Two warehouses were set alight in Aubervilliers and a Jewish synagogue was hit with a fire bomb in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine. In the same city, 100 residents of an apartment building were evacuated when there underbground parking lot was torched. In Essonne, a cop was injured by thrown bricks near the housing projects at Tarterêts where a car dealership and a tire warehouse were burned down. The Saint-Michel-sur-Orge City Hall was partially burned down and another pre-school was partially destroyed in Brétigny-sur-Orge.

If just a small portion of this violence has taken place in an African country, the French preSS would be muttering about civil war. As it is happening in their own corner of the world, they are doing their best to cover up, report as little as possible, and do what they do best -- be in denial.

At this point it is safe to say that the French authorities (sic) are overwhelmed and no longer have a handle on the situation. The rioters have been stepping up the pressure to see how far they can go and they are not finding much resistance, despite increased riot police presence in hotbeds like Seine Saint Denis. The fact that the French government cabinet is rife with infighting and backbiting is certainly a great encouragement for them.

Islam does not play a role in spreading disorderUsing teargas in a mosque in Clichy is shocking, but an Islamist plot is not at the root of the riots spreading.C G. [November 05, 2005]

«Is the urban violence in the Paris area orchestrated by "certain agitators", as the deputy mayor of Raincy (Seine-Saint-Denis), Éric Raoult (UMP) affirms, evoking the spectrum of the "islamists"? Bruno Beschizza, secretary-general of Synergy, the second trade union of senior police officers said that Radical islamists who "seized themselves of this advisability to poke hatred and to cause incidental and fires".

It seems, according to general information's, that "the episode of the mosque" indeed "shocked the Muslim mainstream" and propagated a wave that radical Islamists intervened on.

Sunday evening, a teargas grenade exploded in front of a hall where Morrocans were using for Bilal prayer in Clichy-sous-bois. A police unit tried to remove a nearby car which obstructed its entrance. The police officers then would be perceived to have insulted the women, and threatened "to level the mosque". Since, accounts and rumors circulated very quickly in the vast Moslem community of the city then in the neighbors where often close relations live. The families of Moroccan origin, Oujda and Berkane, many of whom live in in Clichy, but also in Aulnay-sous-bois, in particular telephoned one another. The adults were overcome with anger: a testifies a religious person in charge for Aulnay said that people were enraged. "One insulted Islam and nobody yet showed any regret", said the irritated Mourad. "If there had been teargases in a church or a synagogue, Sarkozy would have been blamed right away."

To mark their dissatisfaction, members of the Moroccan federation (national Federation of the Moslems of France) insisted that the person in charge apologize. But they also took on the role of peacemakers, while calling with Islam, for a cessation of violence. Tuesday evening, several tens of the faithful took to the streets to tranquillize the young people, in an explicit demonstration. On their side, "the radical islamists may find it beneficial rather so that calms it returns, to act quietly", commented Alain Bauer, the national president of a delinquency-watch group. The cities of Seine-Saint-Denis where radical Islam is well established did not go up in flames.»

One trade union representing policemen described the unrest as a "civil war" and called on Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to impose a curfew in areas that have been affected by the violence to ensure that the violence did not spiral out of control

"We have found our thrills: playing with riot police in the evening," one 22-year-old told an Agence France-Presse reporter yesterday. "As long as the police come and provoke us in the evening, we'll bring out the Molotov cocktails, stones, petanque balls, planks."

"In the day, we sleep, go see our girlfriends, play video games," the young man continued as a half-dozen youths nodded. "And in the evening, we have a good time: At 9 p.m., we go and fight the police."

Speaking of individualism versus collectivism, the story [above] reveals one of the contributing causes behind the past week of violence in the suburbs of Paris. Rioting Muslim youth talk about how they throw Molotov cocktails at the police all night. But what do they do during the day? The sleep in their subsidized apartments and lay about on the public dole. This is how the welfare state literally feeds criminality.

For decades, the Europeans have looked down on America as some kind of backward, regressive country, rife with poverty, violence, racism, and religious bigotry. This was always hypocritical, given that it was Europe, not America, that collapsed into the bloodiest wars in history during the 20th century. But it is especially ironic now that France is collapsing into mass unemployment and a racial/religious civil war.

At the France Inter radio station, it is pointed out that in recent days several programs … have presented the positive experiences taken on a social and a cultural level in the banlieue towns.

Let us be generous for a moment and not call this flagrant censorship (even when media bigwigs turn off their comments section, so as not to show dissenting opinions — running 10-1 against the rioters — to the overriding "correct" thought of hand-wringing compassion with humiliated French youth).

Still: all this would be a lot more palatable, of course, if members of the French media, the French élite, and France's society at large made an effort to be somewhat consistent with their outlook and not use double standards. Double standards that happen to be self-serving, needless to say, and favor themselves.

As for "positive experiences", a Wall Street Journal column and a website have existed for the past couple of years giving the good news from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the least that can be said is that French leaders, citizens, and media outlets have not gone out of the way to broach that subject.

Au contraire, the desire to put things into perspective rarely touches Uncle Sam, as the following in-depth articles can ascertain.

[America's leaders] were not alone in their conviction that Saddam had WMDs. France thought so, too, as did Israel, China, Russia, Britain, the United Nations, the CIA and the entire national security team of the … administration. The Germans believed Saddam would have a nuclear weapon within 36 months.

Just how big a threat was Saddam Hussein? Let's reprise what our leaders had to say on the subject. First, here's the president:

"If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences. Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction.? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who's really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too."

"If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He's already demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons. He poison-gassed his own people. He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. This man has no compunction about killing lots and lots of people. So this is a way to save lives and to save the stability and peace of a region of the world that is important to the peace and security of the entire world."

Now, what the gang of professional cynics will be saying, naturally (with their usual snorts, guffaws, and scorn, and even though the website is far from being one of uncritical obeisance), is that it is all a staged event, even one reminiscent of totalitarian propaganda.

The cynicism would be more palatable, of course, if they could point to any group of Iraqis (no matter what size and no matter from what part of the country) actively thanking members of the "peace camp" for opposing the American-led war (and for, incidentally, making billions of dollars in the process of being opposed in "principle" to forcefully ousting Saddam Hussein — the man who just happened to be key beneficiary of the scam in question).

Truett points out that if anyone really hated France they should support the society’s present course when it comes to the troubles faced by the state. He points out the potency of The Otto Effect:

«One minister's suggested cure for Parisian riots? Remove all law enforcement from the area. That, coupled with this article, reminds me of a certain episode in the mid-nineteenth century.»

Leftist, like everyone else in history who adopted a self-destructive ideology seem to uniformly prefer a lack of public decency laboring under the illusion that this will bring about public safety.

Sorry Charlie:

«So, the Germans go bash Paris for a while, but then they get this great idea: why waste soldiers on Paris, when what's left of the French national government doesn't like these barricade-raising, commune-forming Parisians either? Therefore, Bismarck takes his army out (and does various insignificant things like unifying Germany and building up a huge military machine), and what do you think happens? Yes! France turns in on itself, and the French army goes and attacks Paris, much like a scorpion with sunstroke. Bismarck's solution, in short: leave France alone, and it will destroy itself. Seems to be a lasting truth.»

The NY Sun also has a long memory, and points out another aspect of the hubris of thinking that a different kind of cultural exception confers another sort of insurance:

«Back in the 1990s, the French sneered at America for the Los Angeles riots. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported in 1992: "the consensus of French pundits is that something on the scale of the Los Angeles riots could not happen here, mainly because France is a more humane, less racist place with a much stronger commitment to social welfare programs." President Mitterrand, the Washington Post reported in 1992, blamed the riots on the "conservative society" that Presidents Reagan and Bush had created and said France is different because it "is the country where the level of social protection is the highest in the world."»

That, together with this make me think about social policies that resemble the ravings of a brutal overseer who wants to be loved:

«It's a barely kept secret that Mr. Chirac led the opposition to the Iraq war out of fear of how his Muslim population would react. This fear is a big part of why France portrays itself as America's counterweight and why it criticizes Israel at every turn and coddled the terrorist Yasser Arafat right up to his death. This doesn't elicit thanks from Muslim radicals in France. It turns out to project an image of weakness. Unsurprisingly when faced with some unhappiness they believe they can pressure the French state into submission.»

..only to look flummoxed and helpless when it comes to dealing with people.

I wouldn't say they exactly like war, or the present situation, but it is a vast improvement on what the country used to be like.

Because I hear so many doubts and cynicism about the average Iraqi's point of view — due to the MSM's usage of emotionally-charged words of the superlative kind, such as les massacres, le chaos, and l'horreur (and la misère as a description of America's capitalistic society in general), it is practically impossible to touch on positive aspects of the United States (and certainly the presence of its troops in Iraq) in the country of le débat et le dialogue, without being treated to snickers, snorts, harrumphs, and eye-rolling — I have taken to carry a handful of copies of the Le Monde piece (unfortunately, a token article), in which its Baghdad correspondant, instead of relying on his media's usual emotionally-charged words, went around instead and questioned Iraqi citizens.

Not only did Rémy Ourdan report that the pretty much unanimous response to the invasion was that it was the best thing to happen to Iraq in the past 30 years, but Iraqi voices just as overwhelmingly heaped scorn upon the French position concerning their opposition to the American decision to invade (indirectly castigating the position of all "peace camp" members, the position of Bush's opponents, the film of Michael Moore, etc, etc, etc), in the process casting doubt on the true intentions of Paris (doubts of a kind usually reserved for Dubya in the West).

When faced with cynics (as regular visitors to this website know), I don't even bother arguring with them anymore. Instead of wasting my time, I just fish out a photocopy of Ourdan's article and hand it to them.

Well, querida, I told her, you would definitely be in a tight minority if you felt that way, and there wouldn't exactly be a lot of admiration from your (Iraqi) sisters if you said so in a boastful tone of voice.

At this point, her friend chimed in:

Ah, c'm'on, let's talk about something else. Politics should not be discussed during dinner.

I agreed totally, but, hey, then again I didn't bring the subject up, did I? None of them could help it, I guess, that they were with a guy who, after 911, made a solemn promise (and I don't care how arrogant that might sound) that he would never let someone get away with cheap anti-Americanism without reacting.

Besides, if her initial comment had led to a general Bush-bashing fest, I doubt anybody would have complained. I often feel that such comments ("let's not talk politics") only arise when the conversation doesn't seem to be going their way.

In any case the subject was changed, and a wonderful time was had by all. As the senhorita was leaving, however, I asked her,

Didn't you forget something?

"Here, take this", I said as I handed her one of my copies of the Le Monde article. "Read it when you have the time."

Already this evening ...A bus was vandalised and fired on with real bullets in Sarcelles (which is, like, my fave place in the whole world). A supermarket was attacked in Montmagny and an underground parking torched in Persan. In Fougères, firemen providing first aid in a housing project were trapped in an apartment and pelted with rocks. Their attackers then proceeded to torch the ambulance meant to evacuate the injured party.

In the Paris area other incidents are reported in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Clichy-sous-Bois and Saint-Denis, and in the north of France cars are being burned in Lille.

At the same moment that Prime Minister Vilepine was meeting with French youth this afternoon to discuss their grievances, cars were burned - for the first time in broad daylight - directly in front of the Seine Saint Denis police station.

French actor, Muslim, and heroin addict Sami Naceri, threatened to kill Salman Rushdie on the set of French State TV program "Tout le monde en parle" where the two were invited. The sequence was cut before the show aired. Merci à Eric.

In a new book about his time as foreign minister, called Cent Semaines, [Dominique de Villepin] is portrayed through a series of negative anecdotes as "immeasurably pretentious."

writes John Vinocur in the IHT as he recounts another episode of France's alliance with and friendly advice for their "American friends".

In one account, the book tells how the foreign minister was informed at a meeting at the Quai d'Orsay that the American-led war agaist Saddam Hussein would likely be a short one. His response: "That's not desirable. France would appear ridiculous." There is a long silence. Another diplomat says, "The Americans and British are our allies." Villepin ends the meeting.

Italy's spymaster identified an Italian occasional spy named Rocco Martino on Thursday as the disseminator of forged documents that described efforts by Iraq to buy uranium ore from Niger for a nuclear weapons program

What this does is put another nail (as if any were needed) in the coffin that all that Uncle Sam's allies were offering America (whether French or Italian, whether members of the Coalition of the Willing or otherwise) was unfettered and objective friendly advice, and if only America were omniscient, or if only the Bush administration was as close to omniscient as possible, Americans would have heeded that lucid advice, the product of centuries of unequalled experience and wisdom…

(Incidentally, notice the difference between the following IHT sentence and the one printed in its mother paper.)

A breathless three-part series in La Repubblica last week charged that Pollari had disseminated the documents to [the] United States and Britain knowing they were crude forgeries.

Thursday's hearing followed a three-part series in La Repubblica, which said General Pollari had knowingly provided the United States and Britain with forged documents.

(Not that the difference is a big deal. My hunch is that the Paris-based International Herald Tribune printed the story as it was penned in Europe, while the New York Times, as ever willing to provide nuance and refrain from offending anyone [except where American conservatives are concerned], toned it down.)

Doreen Carvajal has an International Herald Tribune piece on some of the stuff that was left out of Michael Moore's "eye-opening" Fahrenheit 911 (as well as the arguments of just about all the members of the so-called "peace camp")…

The night's activity: 400 cars and 27 buses burned in the Paris area. 3 warehouses burned down and many government and administrative buildings hit by fire bombs. Car burnings being reported in other regions of the country. Despite this the French preSS is stating that the violence is down and that there were no riots last night. Now that the French have seen how all of this is being reported in other parts of the world, there is a concerted effort by French media to downplay the violence and show as little of it as possible. i-Tele and Europe1 have already openly discussed reporting less on the riots (so as to not fan the flames), and LCI cable TV news (owned by TF1) is opening the day's newscast with reports of the Marseille transit strike, now in day 32.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Odd, don’t you think that Marianne can almost act like it’s head is screwed on straight for once, but couldn’t help the citation: a quote by Karl Marx, a man whose zombie-like followers worship violence, and arrive at some bizarre conclusions.

Although the ‘colonialism’s revenge’ line has been tossed around, even in the English language media, it’s dopey, and the obvious choice of those with agit-prop fever:

”Creating a human drama with the painful consequences, a fringe in France functions according to the same system as it did with colonization, with its’ ridiculous internal fights in this beginning of the 20th century.

45 years after the decolonization and independence of the old colonies, (a phenomenon which was carried out peacefully in the south of the Sahara and in conflict in North Africa and in Asia,) the colonial question resurfaces. France of 2005 is behaving like a colonial power, treating the descendants of immigrants to its’ discriminatory policy like the old "

Code of Indigénat" abolished in 1946 and with it the relations between Masters and slaves, dominant and dominated, whites and non-whites.”They’ve proven one very simple thing: they have race on the mind and fit it into any passing event that they cant explain as if it’s a deus ex machine to wrap up the third act.

No motives for any of this are certain, and they arrive at the conclusions that its’ cause is the history that they take joy in hating. There is a difference between side effects and causes. Even discounting for a difference in political view, I don’t think that they’re right on this one.

They know well enough that the causes of bad events can generally start it’s reversal by first addressing the after-effects of what that harm has done. It’s almost certain that they want big, costly remedial program to address the ill that they assign to events, as well as define the events themselves.

Here’s a tip: look at what’s actually happening first. The socialist-marxist agenda can’t actually solve anything because it was never meant to – it’s meant to perpetuate the conflict that was supposed to lead to Socialist paradise. Happiness and resolution are BAD for the leftist revolutionary cause.

How likely could it be that the colonization that ended 2 generations ago be at the core of all of this? It’s cause is more likely to be present-day helplessness and dependency of the unsuccessful on the state. When the state is the arbiter of your success, and frustrates people who are otherwise trying to make a better life for themselves, there is a backlash.

How could the past 50 years of ‘managed-society’ NOT appear on Marianne’s radar, and the century prior to that figure so greatly? Because to them the cause and effect are the ones that they want to find.

If any of Marianne’s delusions were really true, the descendants of those from EVERY former colony where there was cruelty would join in, but they aren’t, just the state’s economic wards.

From today’s Guardian comes the usual tripe which is 180 degrees from the thoughts of the public. It amounts to saying that violence is not a choice:

«The violence has once more trained a spotlight on the poverty and lawlessness of France's rundown big-city suburbs and raises questions about an immigration policy that has, in effect, created sink ghettos for mainly African minorities who suffer from discrimination in housing, education and jobs.»

Poverty (the state’s responsibility) caused the hopelessness and racism (the state’s responsibility), leading to violence (the state’s fault.)The BBC has parroted a similar line, implying (implying, mind you, and doing it hourly!) that Sarko’s tough line months ago caused this violence – as if thugs follow political dramas:

«Mr Sarkozy has caused controversy with his strong language, labelling the rioters as "scum" and saying many of the suburbs need "industrial cleaning". Mr de Villepin has preached a more conciliatory message, urging ministers not to "stigmatise" vast areas.»

In other words, it’s anybody’s fault except the people who did it, so please be extra nice to anyone of the same religion or skin color as the perps. How very Euro-touchy, flawed, and psychological doom to the listener who eventually “drinks the kool-aid” to think that regardless of guilt it has to do with appearances and not crime.

The VERY, VERY worst part of it is that there are activist-bots out there who are mad at Sarko’s pronouncements against social scum. The feelies in the social-commentary racket are angry that by this he means the non-native French, but the commentator does. High on the punch of simplisme, it’s the parasitic commentators who are implying that personal decision-making doesn’t matter, and that by “scum”, the non-native French come to their minds. Guilt by skin color – another immoral and uncivilized attribute of the life of the western leftist shows itself again. The enemy? Personal responsibility.

In the mean time, they are as high as a kite on the prospect of another prison-house love scene. BBC Security Correspondent Rob Watson actually had to correct a news-foil on the World Service today – and tell her that the “secret detention camp” story is only a POSSIBLE public relations scandal, but that it isn’t one yet. A girl can dream, can’t she? Watson, however sounded like he was pretty fed up with the broken record routine himself.

Flogging this story every hour is taking up quite a bit of their air-time, even as the idea that the Taliban wouldn’t dream of letting in the ICRC doesn’t even cross their minds.Even the conspiratorially minded CBS 60 Minutes in covering the story nearly a year ago (recycled this week, I’m sure) finally admitted that all of this started under Bill TiberiusClinton to avoid legal niceties, and that as such, Bush established Gitmo as a more ligitimate alternative. But what’s a spy to do? Work in public view and rebrand themselves as the “exo-spies”? Even the left couldn’t wash it. Once again we find the MSM giving us old wine in new bottles.Further on the agenda today is that the Summit of the Americas will be overshadowed by a “rivalry” between Bush an Chavez. Sorry, Auntie – Chavez is the obsessed one. Bush is trying to do diplomatic business in spite of the yapping Shitzu, and the only people who think that this is a “rivalry” are the Ministry of Propaganda that is the mainstream European press who in imagining a “rivalry” are picturing two states that are equal in influence.

Reinforcements are being brought in tonight throughout the infamous 93 suburb (Seine Saint Denis) with the accent being placed on protecting car dealerships, shopping centers, and government buildings. Over 1,000 riot police will be out in force.

French cable TV news channel i-tele is openly considering showing fewer images and less video footage of the riots claiming that such coverage might be fanning the flames. The fact is that they do not want to continue showing what the French citizenry is really like in these battling suburbs. The last two days have given free reign to images of violent vulgarity spouting youths, vowing vengeance on French society, along with a new media figure -- the djellaba garbed neighborhood mediators who claim they will not deal with Sarkozy.

Further reports of police and fire crews being shot at in the Paris suburbs. The BBC has some more on the Paris riots, although their video coverage is largely sympathetic to the rioters (much hogwash about exclusion and the like).

Portions of French media are being overrun by true public sentiment (just as the Establishment was overrun by popular ire during the referendum on the European Constitution). Talk radio and web forums are coming down squarely in favor of Interior Minister Sarkozy with calls for a heavy hand when dealing with rioters. The French preSS is having none of this. LibérationPropagandaStaffel and Le MondeAl-Jazeera on the Seine are dripping with compassion for humiliated French youth. On the TF1 - LCI news site, flagrant censorship in the face of dissenting opinions is barely concealed behind a statement asking readers to be patient because the web forum is overloaded and cannot take anymore comments. Rather than accept any further comments in favor of law and order (running 10-1 against the rioters before the shutdown), they prefer to close the forum:Chers lecteurs, depuis le début des violences en banlieue, vous êtes excessivement nombreux à réagir sur notre site infos. Nous vous en remercions. Mais compte tenu du nombre de réactions envoyées, il est devenu impossible de les publier avec toute la rigueur, l'objectivité et la réactivité qui caractérisent un forum de qualité. Nous sommes donc contraints de suspendre momentanément la publication des avis sur ce sujet hautement sensible. Nous vous remercions de votre compréhension et de votre fidélité.

The French preSS has come down squarely on the side of the rioters. One can only guess that the reason for such an early surrender is that they are afraid that the next step will be bomb belts and suicide attacks. In today's Le Monde, Plantu depicts Interior Minisiter Sarkozy as an American Indian fanning the flames of discontent amongst some burning cars, the better to advance his Presidential run in 2007 (this is probably the first time I've ever seen any French media depict American Indians as culprits). Prime Minister Vilepine is seen in the role of fireman, arriving with buckets of water to douse the fire. Plantu always shows the rioters far in the background as friendly figures wearing urban style rapper clothes.

Rioters are now shooting at riot cops with real bullets. The French preSS is mystified by this development, real bullets having been banned by Ripoublika Franska decree many moons ago. The French preSS is also mystified that rioting exists at all, happiness and joyful brotherhood having been declared by decree (and redeclared endlessly) to be the general condition of the people. The latest theory by the French preSS on the causes of this violence has something to do with the needless provoking, insulting, and humiliating of a certain portion of the population that would otherwise have been perfectly happy and law abiding.

Young French bloggers are spreading inter-suburban rumors and encouragement through the numerous Skyblogs that sprout up like poisonous mushrooms.

Money quotes from these rising French blogstars: "screw the cops", "too many brothers who did not live their life are in the cemetery", "the cops will pay for this. If you need us in Clichy [suburb where the current riots started] we can come over. Gagny [an other shithole suburb] is just next door", "Clichy guy needs help to screw the cops", "May God bless France because the war has begun", and of course the usual rubbish about Allah and paradise and the like.Et oui, en Repoublika Franska, les blogs ne sont pas rédigés que par les vieux pédés friqués du 8ème, qui lâchent quelques vacuités -- entre deux crises d'hystérie -- dans l'ambiance calfeutrée de leurs bureaux huppés où ils croupissent en contemplant les lambris dorés.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

The action has started tonight directly in front of the police station in Bobigny (Seine Saint Dénis) where a car was set ablaze. The jihadis are letting authorities know who is really running the show. Stone throwing gangs are operating in at least 6 suburbs in the same area. The night is young.

Enfin: riots are catching to the point that the President has to dirty his hands and address it. 250 cars stoked up so far, Molotov cocktails hurled around... All in all it's a garden variety idiot-palooza with no obvious conclusion other than a government begging for a "time for healing" while trying to bust the losers hiding in nearly ungovernable suburbs.

Of course the inciters will eventually look for a social payoff of some sort after they do their inevitable crocodile tear Kabuki about having to live in awful conditions.

Today, more than half BBC World Service’s programming has been made up of Anti-Bush and Anti-US programming. Everything from the withdrawn Meirs’ nomination being a death blow to conservatives, whether the Iraqi invitation for more former (but non-baathist) military service members to enlist in the New Iraqi Army is a failure of the war, or a failure of the Iraqis, Katrina, blah, blah, blah, a quarter point rate increase, blah, blah, blah, the economy “faultering”, blah, blah, blah, quagmire, blah, blah, blah... The stupidity of the US stockpiling Tamiflu, blah, blah, blah... Rove in the dock, (not!), blah, blah, blah...

Generally reviving every old slag that they peddled over the past 3 years, but generally didn’t materialize. I don’t have stats, but it felt like an all-time high for a day when there was no major news item coming from Washington. It was all constructed news and opinion spun around the fact that John Kerry lost the Presidential election one year ago.

The story is a non-starter in the US, because even most democrats don't think or wish that the first year is somehow provisional, of that the whole thing might e reversed by an über-authority. Even the rage behind the silly "impeach Bush" stickers you see vandalizing fixtures in public are an outlier and well understood as the silly outbust of people who's feeling are hurt.

The Plame-game is still running to a hopeful extent on the BBC in a factual vacuum that didn’t factor in the fact that she outed HERSELF to Vanity Fair before anyone else did, that she recommended her husband for a mission where he cocked up his gathering with his politics, all without telling the Assigning agent that they were married, and omitting the fact that which coming to the conclusion after socializing with people that yellow cake was something best served with wine rather than coffee, that 400 tons of the shit were found in Baghdad. After all if anyone committed a crime, it was Plame for giving her identity away, and practicing politics in the employ of the CIA.

Time wasted and effort spent trying to find the key to the door, the kernel of truth in the big lie...

It is anything but “World News”. In January of 2009 when George Bush leaves office what will they fill the absence in their day with? Will they have to go out and look for something to report? Will they catch on to the fact that the Europeans and their worldwide admiration cult wasted so much time and energy inventing stories and irrational hatred over the course of 8 years.

The money spent, the time taken, the energy that could have gone into them doing harm to the world... Ahhh...

The big lie was on the left, and sold to them by a press that pitched to them ginned-up stories and conspiracy theories dressed up as speculation, and minor items pitched as seminal. The great distraction, not unlike Lenin’s “big lie” which a movement so desperately needs.

Except for the fact that they could be actually covering the NEWS, I'm pleased. Elated. "Happy dance" happy...

«Invited to show his stuff on a new political program on state-owned France 2, Villepin managed to talk about jobs, promise jobs, claim that jobs are his government's top priority, repeat the word "jobs" as if it were an open sesame, and never say a word about the economy, let alone economic development.»

The divergence of view isn't just large, it's historic. While most of the world to some degree still looks up to a Horatio Alger story to live by, and giving of oneself to others as a celebration of ones' success, the French view is that someone else's tax bill is the only expression of charity, and a history inspiring little to be proud of:

«This too is the French Economic Model: a stingy peasant attitude that perceives jobs as a scarcity to be jealously hoarded and parsimoniously distributed.»

As if a society made up of people who can by law keep freeriding off of one another can survive. Others still are not permitting themselves the indulgence of envy and looking for another way to get there themselves. L’Expansion notes that an extended period of growth changes some factors permanently:

«The explanation is more surprising: millionaires have less debt. Indeed, the percentage of the debt they’re carrying dropped by 8% to reach on average of 165 000 dollars, which has caused an increase their net income

[ . . .]There never were as many rich Americans as there are this year. According to a study by the TNS Company, for the third consecutive year, the number of millionaires rose according to a record figure of 9 million.»Hardly the portrait of a society where those generating employment are pissing their wealth away on the “plastic fantastic” or living beyond their means. Those who think expansion doesn't matter are diminishing the potential of everyone around them. A look at lefty rhetoric tells one quite clearly that socialism kills - either quickly in a fanatical purge, or by a thousand cuts with a thousand rules.

Why don't the Yanks ask themselves why their enemies hate the so much?

Francis Fukuyama goes "right to the heart of why Europe is in such trouble" (Frank P Hart tells us).

There is good reason for thinking … that a critical source of contemporary radical Islamism lies not in the Middle East, but in Western Europe. In addition to Bouyeri and the London bombers, the March 11 Madrid bombers and ringleaders of the September 11 attacks such as Mohamed Atta were radicalized in Europe. In the Netherlands, where upwards of 6% of the population is Muslim, there is plenty of radicalism despite the fact that Holland is both modern and democratic. And there exists no option for walling the Netherlands off from this problem.

… The identity problem is particularly severe for second- and third-generation children of immigrants. They grow up outside the traditional culture of their parents, but unlike most newcomers to the United States, few feel truly accepted by the surrounding society. Contemporary Europeans downplay national identity in favor of an open, tolerant, "post-national" Europeanness. But the Dutch, Germans, French and others all retain a strong sense of their national identity, and, to differing degrees, it is one that is not accessible to people coming from Turkey, Morocco or Pakistan.

… The real challenge for democracy lies in Europe, where the problem is an internal one of integrating large numbers of angry young Muslims and doing so in a way that does not provoke an even angrier backlash from right-wing populists. Two things need to happen: First, countries like Holland and Britain need to reverse the counterproductive multiculturalist policies that sheltered radicalism, and crack down on extremists. But second, they also need to reformulate their definitions of national identity to be more accepting of people from non-Western backgrounds.

The first has already begun to happen. In recent months, both the Dutch and British have in fact come to an overdue recognition that the old version of multiculturalism they formerly practiced was dangerous and counterproductive. Liberal tolerance was interpreted as respect not for the rights of individuals, but of groups, some of whom were themselves intolerant (by, for example, dictating whom their daughters could befriend or marry). Out of a misplaced sense of respect for other cultures, Muslims minorities were left to regulate their own behavior, an attitude which dovetailed with a traditional European corporatist approaches to social organization. In Holland, where the state supports separate Catholic, Protestant and socialist schools, it was easy enough to add a Muslim "pillar" that quickly turned into a ghetto disconnected from the surrounding society.

… But the much more difficult problem remains of fashioning a national identity that will connect citizens of all religions and ethnicities in a common democratic culture, as the American creed has served to unite new immigrants to the United States.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Dalil Boubakeur, head of the Paris mosque and of the ineffective joke known as the French Council of the Muslim Faith, was pelted with rocks by French youth in Seine Saint Dénis where he called for an end to Paris' suburban riots.

Why doesn’t this kook just use Pol Pot’s "year zero" Calender, instead? Here he is keeping it Raël:

«The facts: The United Nations Organization that supposedly speaks and rules impartially for all nations of the Earth, is still using the Christian calendar which is viewed as being disrespectful for all other religions of the world.»

Speaks and RULES? Impartially, at that? This dude is not clear on parliamentary bodies of debate not RULING anything, especially when they aren’t a government to begin with.

«The solution: The adoption by the UN of a non-religious calendar based on a non-religious historical event. For instance, it can be a calendar in which year 0 would either be the date the UN was founded or the date marked by the explosion of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima. If the latter would be accepted, this means that 2001 (august 6th) would, in fact, be the year 56 aH (after Hiroshima).»

No political preference detected there, I guess...

His cosmic crackpipe speaks further:

«How can your own government betray your Muslim faith by accepting to ratify treaties at the UN using the Christian calendar?Isn’t the UN clearly saying that the Christian faith has superiority over the Muslim faith? If not, why impose on Muslim governments the ratification of official UN documents using the Christian calendar?»

Besides how could you be any LESS universal than by naming a movement AFTER YOURSELF and then thinking up goofy stunts that will draw in chumps that will only "thin the herd" with a low average intellect?

The Dutch resist. The French fold under pressure. There's more on young Danes rioting for the last 4 days. In France, the riots by French youth in Clichy sous Bois are inspriring youths in other suburbs to copy and paste.

«"It is the resistance in Palestine which will undoubtedly lead to the fall of the 'Zionist' regime," said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a statement carried by the student-run news agency ISNA.»

[ … ]

«Khamenei retorted: "These ignorant people do not realize that nuclear weapons are no good for toppling regimes or governments. It is the nation's resistance and will that destroys corrupt regimes."» Note the absence of the denial that they have a nuclear weapons program, and the painful suppression of their own laughter as they assert that they need the electricity so freaking badly. In fact they’re denying things that you can still see clips of on the news.